Science Fun

Our homeschool adventures with the Buskers have been very bright spots in our year. We meet twice a week for an hour to do Science with them. They have 6 kids (14, 13, 11, 9, 7, and 5), so each of my boys has someone close to their age, which is extra fun. We started with Marine Biology, then moved on to Space, and are now working on Energy. It is so fun to have other people to learn with, and it makes me do a better job as a teacher because I know there are many kids to prepare a lesson for. I have already blogged about the first few months, so I will focus on the ending of our Space unit and the fun things we are doing for Energy. 

Space science was awesome for the older kids, but it was a little trickier for the younger kids to understand, so we wanted to make sure to include some fun activities that would help them grasp some of the ideas. For our grand finale, Jonathon suggested that we make rockets and launch them. What a great idea! We had the kids decorate their rockets in groups, and then we met together on a Saturday afternoon to launch them. The boys named their rocket "The Flying Dorito" because it had orange stripes and fins. It was such a fun activity, and they flew great!

Our current unit is a study of Energy. It is by far the one that has required the most prep work and study from me, but the kids love it because of all the cool experiments and hands-on activities that we do. Some of them have included:

*Learning about atoms and molecules using playdough; I had the older kids build a water molecule.

*Identifying various alternative forms of energy, including: solar, geothermal, wind, and more. We even visited our local greenhouse to hear how the greenhouse effect works.

*Understanding heat energy, how it is transferred, and which materials are conductors or insulators.

*Looking at the effects of friction by building hot wheels tracks and racing cars.

*Studying Electricity and things like circuits and motors. The kids got to build their own creations using a kit with motors, propellers, wires, and various other little parts. Christian and Jonathon designed an awesome propeller car. 

The Buskers made their own DC motor from scratch using a magnet, coiled wire, and a battery pack. It was fascinating to see how it worked. I took a slow-motion video of it for the kids. I am learning so much from all these science lessons.

 When we finish up Energy, we are hoping to do one more unit on Geology. All of our Science units have come from The Good and the Beautiful, and have been really fun.